Access your Pro+ Content below.

Lawyers fan flames of e-mail archiving fire

Booming interest in data archival was initially fueled by new regulations mandating that data be retained for longer periods of time. But these days, interest in archiving data--particularly e-mail--has become more mainstream, going beyond well-regulated industries. Archiving e-mail just makes good business sense, say some companies that have taken the plunge. CODA, a U.K.-based developer of accounting software, for example, recently began archiving internal e-mail using Hewlett-Packard's Reference Information Storage System (RISS). While CODA isn't regulated per se, many of its clients are, and it wanted to set an example of good corporate governance, says Richard Hall, IT manager. "We're always helping our own customers deal with compliance, so when we started looking at our internal policies and best practices, we felt [RISS] would be a good foundation to improve how we stored and archived e-mails." But Hall was also considering the possibility of having to defend CODA's e-mail archiving practices in court. Because RISS is "a...

Storage administrators often ask what their peers are doing to solve DR problems. However, information of this type is usually difficult to make public. These case studies have a central theme: Increasing data levels and stricter compliance regulations are forcing companies to look to newer technologies to solve their growing DR and backup pains.